“Everyone in this country is feeling alone,” declared U.S. Sen. Christopher Murphy. The Democrat made the idiotic assertion on CNN’s State of the Union program on the final day of 2023.
A buzzword is trapped in Murphy’s head, “lonely,” and we will all suffer until a new one takes its place. You might think that Murphy, who believes all 335 million of us are miserable wretches, would appear a touch morose while discussing our common misery. Not Murphy. He appeared delighted to tell host Dana Bash, who declined to challenge Murphy’s nonsense, that our “real sickness, emotionally, spiritually physically” can prompt a “wonderfully unifying conversations.”
CT Sen. Murphy: Legislation must address loneliness a ‘serious, misunderstood’ problems in US
Murphy is alarmed — or oddly pleased to report, it’s sometimes hard to tell by his affect — that “12% of Americans say they have not a single friend.” Friends is a topic Murphy ought to steer well clear of in public. Murphy has twice highlighted his friendship with Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, formerly the Finance Minister and now the Prime Minister of Qatar.
“Al-Thani and I get along well — he’s slightly younger than me and our kids are the same ages,” Murphy wrote in 2021. Freedom House has pointed out Qatar’s “harrowing human rights records.”
Al-Thani is the all-powerful Emir’s enforcer of a government that allows no independent journalism, denies ordinary freedoms like the right to form a union and bargain with employers and denies maternity care to unmarried mothers. Women face severe restrictions, especially the right to travel out of the country.
Migrant workers died constructing the vast infrastructure for the 2022 World Cup competition in Qatar. Murphy and Al-Thani are around the same age and their children are the same ages, so Al-Thani’s role in overseeing the denial of freedom to millions, particularly women, apparently is of no consequence to Murphy because everyone should have friends and the Connecticut Democrat seems to like at least one of his with a problematic record on human rights.
Murphy has in the past backed Houthis, saying that removing its terrorist designation would “save lives.” Houthis is the radical Islamists in Yemen whose motto is “Allah is great, death to the US, death to Israel, curse the Jews, and victory for Islam.” Since late October, Houthi terrorists have been firing missiles at Israel, American naval ships and cargo vessels. Murphy may not be the best judge of the human condition. We don’t need an office in the White House telling us how to make a friend, a misbegotten Murphy idea. We’ll find our own friends, thank you.
On CNN, Murphy eventually got to the point of his-nation-of-sad-sacks talk. He wants the government to get its and his mitts on our cellphones, especially the ones used by young people. Murphy is showing his age. Seventy years ago the middle-aged were in a twist about Elvis Presley swinging his hips on television. Sixty years ago adults Murphy’s age were alarmed by the arrival, haircuts and songs of the Beatles. Now it’s phones.
Murphy claims, according to Bash, “there is real spiritual sickness in the U.S.” Politicians are particularly unqualified to write prescriptions for our spiritual needs. They are in a business filled with people who do not want to go home at night. Anyone who seeks, wins, and maintains himself in a high political office that by its nature takes him away from his children many nights year after year has nothing useful to impose on the inner lives of the rest of us.
Murphy announced to the world through a November puff piece in fashionable Vanity Fair magazine that he has been attending church services since last spring. He enjoys the rituals. Keep it to yourself. When I hear one of those right wing Republicans yammering on about the decline of America and how we are losing our country, I cringe. It is no different coming out of the mouth of left wing Democrat Murphy.
We live in a remarkable age in a glorious country. Free nations engaging in free trade have lifted billions, yes billions, out of grinding poverty around the world. What Murphy sneered at recently as “neoliberalism” is a force for good. The American economy remains one of the wonders of the world. It is the nature of the human condition that we face individual and collective challengers.
A Gallup survey last spring found that loneliness had declined dramatically since the height of the pandemic in 2020-2021. It’s not a surprise that the poor continue to suffer most with feelings of isolation and loneliness but even their numbers have dropped significantly.
Murphy’s dark notion that our lives are bereft of meaning as we huddle alone in the darkest corner of our homes is wrong. A United States senator ought to know we are much more than what his grim view provides him. If after 17 years in high office in Washington, Murphy really believes each of us feels alone, then he has been a failure.
Murphy’s strange view of 335 million Americans does cause one to recall the wisdom of 20th century treasure Dorothy Parker, who wrote, “Hell is other people.”
Kevin F. Rennie of South Windsor is a lawyer and a former Republican state senator and representative.
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